Italian Leader’s Remark Draws Fire

Italian President Francesco Cossiga has been lambasted by scholars and political commentators for his remarks equating communism with Nazism, which he made during an official visit to Hungary last week.

The president said in his defense that he was not referring to communism as an idea, but “to that specific, monstrous, very concrete Soviet communism imposed by tanks.”

Historian Giuseppe Galasso observed that communism and Nazism, while both totalitarian systems, had different values.

“Nazism is linked to race, to the idea of an imperial predominance imposed by force. Communism, while it is totalitarian, is motivated by the idea of social redemption and equality,” he said.